InfoSci®-Journals Annual Subscription Price for New Customers: As Low As US$ 4,950

This collection of over 175 e-journals offers unlimited access to highly-cited, forward-thinking content in full-text PDF and XML with no DRM. There are no platform or maintenance fees and a guarantee of no more than 5% increase annually.

Receive the complimentary e-books for the first, second, and third editions with the purchase of the Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, Fourth Edition e-book. Plus, take 20% off when purchasing directly through IGI Global's Online Bookstore.

Chicago

Nagaty, Khaled Ahmed. "E-Commerce Business Models: Part 2." In Encyclopedia of E-Business Development and Management in the Global Economy, ed. In Lee, 359-369 (2010), accessed March 19, 2018. doi:10.4018/978-1-61520-611-7.ch035

Abstract

In this article the author explained some of the common artificial intelligence techniques used in e-commerce web sites and how these techniques are implemented in auctions, intermediaries and e-marketplaces to increase customer’s satisfaction, minimize the look up time, reduce costs and improve the usability of e-commerce Web sites so that visitors can quickly access the required information or perform required transactions without being overwhelmed or confused with the large amount of data.

Background

In B2C e-commerce business models important AI techniques are:

1.

Intelligent agents: they are personalized software, member of the bot family and use machine-learning algorithms to accommodate user's preferences without extensive rewriting of code and rules. Intelligent agents can be used in information gathering, prediction purposes, searching e-marketplaces on behalf of their owners enabling one-stop shopping on the web, reducing shopping costs, give the customer the opportunity to set his preferences, choose what to buy and from whom to buy, they also help a customer to enter negotiations and participate in auctions. According to (Nwana, 1996), the most important characteristics of intelligent agents are:

•

Autonomy: means that agents process their work independently and proactively without any intervention from their owners.

•

Cooperation: means that agents are able to communicate with one another, negotiating on certain issues.

•

Learning: means that agents are able to learn as they react or interact with their environment and other agents.

Sellers use intelligent agents to track demand and market share changes, engage in competitive knowledge mining, negotiate and even learn through collaboration from buyer agents. Buyers may need decision agents to comparison shop, while sellers may need a broker, provider, and merchant agent to sell a product (Sinmao, 1999).